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Lot Essay
Léonard Boudin, maître in 1761
Pierre Roussell, maître in 1745.
This rare form of coffre-bijoux belongs to a small and select group predominantly executed on commission for the marchands-mercier. Of these, perhaps the closest example is that stamped by Boudin that was with Ségoura in 1990 (now in a Private Collection). Two others, stamped by the same marchand-ébéniste are recorded:- one is in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (illustrated in 'French Taste in the Eighteenth Century', Exhibition Catalogue, Detroit Institute of Art, 27 April-June 3 1956, no.41, p.25); the other was sold in Paris, 7 December 1968, lot 129.
They may well have been the work of a sub-contractor, in all probability Pierre Roussel. Further related examples include that stamped by Roussel in the Severance Prentiss Bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art (illustrated in the Catalogue of the Elizabeth Severance Prentiss Collection, Cleveland, 1944, pl.XV, p.42); an unstamped coffre illustrated by R. Wark, French Decorative Art in the Huntington Collection, 1979, figs.70 and 72; another by Roussel, sold at Christie's London, 12 December 2002, lot 45 (£160,500), which originally came from the Hillingdon Collection; another, stamped Boudin, sold in Paris, 15 March 1937, lot 146, which was decorated with cube parquetry and quatrefoils; and a final unstamped example sold at Sotheby's London, 19 April 1937, lot 174.
The most elaborate example, profusely inlaid with incrustations of mother-of-pearl and formerly in the collection of the Earls of Jersey at Middleton Park, was sold from the Jaime Ortiz-Patiño Collection at Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1992, lot 71 ($352,000).
Pierre Roussell, maître in 1745.
This rare form of coffre-bijoux belongs to a small and select group predominantly executed on commission for the marchands-mercier. Of these, perhaps the closest example is that stamped by Boudin that was with Ségoura in 1990 (now in a Private Collection). Two others, stamped by the same marchand-ébéniste are recorded:- one is in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (illustrated in 'French Taste in the Eighteenth Century', Exhibition Catalogue, Detroit Institute of Art, 27 April-June 3 1956, no.41, p.25); the other was sold in Paris, 7 December 1968, lot 129.
They may well have been the work of a sub-contractor, in all probability Pierre Roussel. Further related examples include that stamped by Roussel in the Severance Prentiss Bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art (illustrated in the Catalogue of the Elizabeth Severance Prentiss Collection, Cleveland, 1944, pl.XV, p.42); an unstamped coffre illustrated by R. Wark, French Decorative Art in the Huntington Collection, 1979, figs.70 and 72; another by Roussel, sold at Christie's London, 12 December 2002, lot 45 (£160,500), which originally came from the Hillingdon Collection; another, stamped Boudin, sold in Paris, 15 March 1937, lot 146, which was decorated with cube parquetry and quatrefoils; and a final unstamped example sold at Sotheby's London, 19 April 1937, lot 174.
The most elaborate example, profusely inlaid with incrustations of mother-of-pearl and formerly in the collection of the Earls of Jersey at Middleton Park, was sold from the Jaime Ortiz-Patiño Collection at Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1992, lot 71 ($352,000).